Illusions
by catlover5040
Summary: What do Clara and her madman learn about each other when their worst nightmares are spun into reality?


"You sure you know what you're doing, chin boy?" Clara asked, looking up at the Doctor teasingly. "You're not gonna crash us again, are you, now?"

"'Course not," the Doctor answered defiantly. "A thousand years with her, Clara. I'm a master."

"Where we going?" she questioned. "Alien planet? Better be. We seem to spend an awful lot of time in London, with all of time and space on our hands."

"It's a process," he retorted, and swiveled to face her, straightening his bow tie. "But yes, if you must know we are going to an alien planet, that we are. Planet of Gold, they used to call it. A poor man's heaven, they said. A greedy man's heaven, I say."

"And is it made of gold?" she tilted her head at him.

"Nope," he responded. "Made entirely of pyrite. Some people say the planet has a heart of gold, but that's all rubbish, I say."

"Oh." her shoulders slumped, slightly disappointed. "What makes it so special, then?"

"It's nice to look at," he murmured, staring into the distance for a second, and then shook himself out of it. "Yes. Awfully pretty, it is, though they've got seven suns that rotate the planet in unison, so you've got to wear powerful sunglasses at time."

"Isn't it the other way round?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "The earth orbits round the sun, Doctor, you know that."

"Yes, but this isn't the earth, now, is it, Clara?" he pressed a finger to her lips and she giggled. "Now, the TARDIS should get us there any second now..."

And then, in Clara's mind, the events that followed in succession were fuzzy and hard to remember. The TARDIS spun on its side, sending Clara sliding fast toward the wall. The Doctor shouted her name and reached out for her as he grabbed onto the console, but she was going too fast. She tried to grab onto something and shrieked as she careened faster toward the wall. She kicked off of a pole she passed and was able to make it through the doorway.

But then, that wasn't quite a good thing, was it? Before she knew it, she was spinning through the dark, and then she crashed on a hard, cold ground and her mind stopped working.

* * *

She woke to the noise of a whirring screwdriver somewhere very far away from her. She looked up and saw a pillar of darkness around her, but somewhere high up she saw a small oval of dim light and a familiar face above it. He stopped and smiled down at her, a distant, blurry smile, when he saw that she was awake.

"Clara," he said quietly. "I thought you weren't going to wake up. I thought you were dead," he added bluntly."

"Then what are you and your screwdriver doing up there, eh?" she asked blearily.

"Trying to revert the gravity," he explained. "There's a sort of cosmic chemical effect from the pyrite, I s'pose. The TARDIS doesn't like it. It sent her spinning around and was draining her energy. She started turning things off, starting with-"

"-the gravity filter," Clara finished breathlessly. "Yes, I figured that much. But that's not my point. If you thought I was dead, what are you doing trying to get me out of here?"

He mumbled something she couldn't make out, and she didn't press it. Instead, she tried to stand up and failed dramatically. The blackness and the source of light both swirled around her and she hit the ground again.

"Don't try to stand up, love," the Doctor called anxiously. "You've been out for quite a while, so I expect you'll be a bit woozy. Just relax, Clara, I'm going to get you out of this."

So Clara did try to relax. She really did. But she felt rather useless, and she didn't much like feeling useless. So she tried standing up again. She felt a sharp pain go up her right leg and crashed back down to the floor with a cry.

"Clara," she heard the Doctor say reproachfully. "Clara, I'm telling you. The TARDIS doesn't like you. You're going to agitate yourself if you don't calm down, and then you'll start panicking. And the TARDIS, she'll take your thoughts, your worst nightmares, perhaps, and spin them into an illusion. And you'll really believe that illusion to be reality..."

"No. I won't," Clara said stubbornly. "I want to help you, Doctor. You can't just call me love and expect me to sit tight until you figure it all out."

"I'm sorry, Clara, but there's not much you can do right now," he said in a maddeningly kind tone. "You really do have to just sit tight, love."

"Don't call me that," she shouted, but that was the annoying thing. She couldn't really do much to retaliate when she was stuck down here. She couldn't slap his stupid face or stomp off. Well, she could do that, but heaven knew what she'd find.

She leaned against the wall and sighed, letting her eyes close momentarily. She really was tired, when she thought about it...

But then she heard a sob somewhere near her. Her eyes fluttered open. That wasn't the Doctor, it was a woman. She looked around and saw nothing.

"Doctor, did you hear that?" she called up.

"Hear what?" he called distractedly.

"Nothing," she murmured, and stood up again. She took a step in the direction of the noise and then gasped.

A bed had appeared in front of her, but it was occupied. And in that bed was a woman, her face all-too-familiar.

"Clara," she whispered, and Clara felt a shiver running down her spine.

"Mum?" she whispered back, taking a cautious step towards the bed. "Mum, what are you doing here?"

But the woman didn't see her, nor was she speaking to her. Kneeling beside the bed was a man, a man who was dear to her heart, and a young girl about sixteen years old with dark hair. Both the man and the girl were sobbing and the woman was whispering something.

"Stay close to your friends, Clara," her mother murmured feebly. "And find the right man. He'll come along, love, I promise, but until then you have to be strong on your own. And you will, won't you?"

"Yes, mama," sixteen-year-old Clara sniffled. "I will."

"Mum?" Clara said, feeling tears come to her eyes. "Mum, are you real? Can you hear me?" She felt an odd swooping sensation as she took another step towards the bed, and then another.

"Clara!" the Doctor shouted above her, sounding panicked. "It's not real, Clara, they're not really there, don't go near them or touch them!"

"But they're real, Doctor," she said in a hollow voice that wasn't her own. "She's real, anyway, she's got to be."

"Stay away from them," the Doctor snapped in a constricted voice, but she didn't listen. In a few more strides, she was at the bedside opposite her father and herself.

"Mama, I'm here," she whispered, not knowing quite what she was doing or why she was doing it. "It's me. Your Clara. I'm all grown up now, but it's me. I'm a teacher now and I did find a good man, a wonderful one, we're just friends but he's the world to me, and-" she trailed off and clasped her mother's hand.

"Clara- no!" the Doctor yelled above her, but it was too late. Her mother, along with the other two individuals and the bed, vanished into a wave of blood. Clara screamed as it washed over her and fell to the ground sobbing.

She heard a thump on the ground and then felt a strong arm around her. "Clara, you're fine," he said sternly but gently. "The blood wasn't real. I told you, it was all an illusion. The TARDIS was playing off your fears and nightmares. She was just messing with you, Clara, just messing." He ruffled her hair and kissed the top of her head. "It's literally just a bad dream. You're okay. I've got you."

He hugged her and she held on tight, feeling numb and scared. He pulled away and brushed his hand against her face gently. "It's okay. It's all gone. You're with me now, the TARDIS won't do anything to you."

She sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "What are you doing down here?" she asked, changing the subject as she realized she was slightly embarrassed.

"I- um-" now he looked a little embarrassed. "I jumped down. My sonic slowed my fall. I sort of flew down."

"Well, if your sonic can help you fly down," Clara began, thinking, "couldn't it help us fly up?"

"Nope." He shook his head vehemently. "The gravity filter's completely off, Clara, and my sonic can't change that on its own. Only the TARDIS can. We already had gravity on our side, the sonic just kept me from hitting the ground hard."

"Like me," she said reproachfully.

"Like you," he said, smiling ruefully. "Let's take a look at that leg of yours, shall we? Nothing I can't fix." He bent over and gingerly put his hands under her leg, pressing gently around her ankle. She flinched and he glanced at her concernedly.

"That hurt?" he asked kindly.

"Just a bit," she said quietly. He ran his hands over her leg and she gasped in pain just from his light touch.

"You got more than a little scraped up," he murmured. "Broken leg, I'm afraid." He tightened his hold and she cried out, trying to wriggle away. To her surprise, though, she saw a glow of golden energy and she literally felt the crack in her bones resolving. Her eyes still watering, she looked at him incredulously and he tilted his head, smiling.

"Regeneration energy," he explained. "That's about four years of my life there."

"You shouldn't have done that," she exclaimed, pulling away. "That's- four years is a long time! You shouldn't have wasted it on me."

"For you, nothing is a waste, Clara Oswald," he murmured, and kissed her forehead again. "Just so long as you feel better. Now, let's try to resolve the gravity issue, shall we?"

They looked at each other and stood up. In unison they looked up at where the hole of light had been. Clara felt sick to her stomach and looked at the Doctor quickly.

The ceiling had sealed itself up again.

"On second thought," he said slowly, his face hard to decipher in the penetrating darkness, "I don't think that's going to be much of an option."

They turned around and faced the vast darkness behind them.

"Well then, Impossible Girl," he murmured, smiling at her in an almost creepy way. "Let's go see if the TARDIS has a way for us to get out of this, shall we?"

Hesitantly, she slipped her hand into his. He laughed and she did so timidly. Together they strolled into the darkness, slowly waiting for what was going to happen next.

* * *

**Please R/R! This is my first Doctor Who fanfiction, excepting a Who/Les Mis crossover I wrote a while back. I really love the Doctor and Clara's relationship and decided to explore it this way. This will be a multi-chapter fic, sort of inspired by The God Complex. The Doctor is a pretty difficult character to write, but I hope I did him and Clara justice. Thanks for reading :)**


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